Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

Turning from the question of the probable formation of the valley, we may next notice the most remarkable of its antiquities, namely, the Tellûl or Tells there found.

The word Tell (meaning a “heap”) is used for many different things; for a conical mountain, for a little sand-hillock, for an artificial mound, or for a heap of ruins. The Jordan Valley has Tells of all these kinds in it, but the class of artificial mounds is the one more peculiarly interesting. Of these there are seven at Jericho, twenty-four at Beisân, several others between, and others again east of Jordan. They have been described as ruined sites of cities or fortresses, commanding the passes; the following peculiarities seem to be invariably recognisable.

The Tell is a mound with steep slopes, from two or three to twenty or thirty feet high; a large Tell is often surrounded by smaller ones irregularly scattered; they are of no particular shape, and they show no signs of stone masonry, being outwardly earthen mounds, whilst inwardly, Captain Warren’s excavations proved them in some cases to consist of sun-dried bricks.

The Tells all occur in alluvial soil, and I believe there is scarcely an instance in which water—a spring or a stream—is not found close by. It is true that Tells exist near the passes of the hills and by the Jordan fords, but this is, I think, no proof that they were fortresses, for half the number are placed in positions of no strategical value, and those which are so placed will be found also to stand by water either springing from the hills or flowing into Jordan.

Brick mounds in clay land by water are suggestive of brick-making. Travellers from India and from Egypt have recognised a similarity between the Jordan Valley Tells and the great mounds of refuse bricks, found in both those countries, on which other bricks are laid out to dry in the sun. This seems to me the most probable origin of the Tells.

The preceding observations are intended to give a general idea of the physical features of the Jordan Valley, and of their relation to its probable origin, as well as of the most striking archæological features. We may now return to the history of the second Jordan Valley campaign, and to the principal Biblical discoveries which rewarded us for months of most severe exertion.

The Survey was interrupted from the 4th of December 1873 to the 24th of February 1874, in consequence of the severe attacks of fever from which the whole party suffered at Jericho, and afterwards while wintering in Jerusalem; but on the 24th of February we marched down into the valley, and by the 20th of April we had completed the work to within three miles of the Sea of Galilee; the rate obtained was nearly 300 square miles per month, being treble that which had been possible with the smaller, and inexperienced party, which I had conducted through the Samaritan mountains.

Descending by the familiar pass of Wâdy Kelt, we found the valley completely changed in appearance. It was no longer all white and glaring chalk, but a broad expanse of deep pasture; the Kelt was a rapid stream running with a loud murmur in its rocky chasm.

As a precaution, we now encamped on the top of the fatal Tell by Elisha’s Fountain, beneath which we had suffered so much three months before. It was no longer a mound of dust, but a hillock, hidden deep in luxuriant mallows with immense round leaves.

We visited the Dead Sea once more, to fix up poles for observing the water-levels; these poles had been carefully made in Jerusalem, and were marked with figures. The first we drove, without difficulty, at the water’s edge, but the second it was almost impossible to fix. Floating on my back, I held it upright in the water with my feet, while Drake swam and drove it with a mallet. There was a strong current, which made the operation most difficult, but at length it was so far fixed that I was able to climb on to it, and to drive it down farther with the mallet from above. We were nearly an hour in the water, and Drake suffered from the over-exertion. Within a week the Arabs pulled up the poles, for the sake of the iron, in spite of the reiterated assurances of the Sheikhs that they should be respected.